Thorn's Blood
by Crystaline Snape
Summary: Acacia comes to live with her father at the end of Harry's fifth year. She, too was born at the end of July. So why didn't Dumbledore mention her? Did he even know that she existed? There will not be any major OoP spoilers until third chapter.


Title: Thorn's Blood

Rating: PG-13/light R

Genre: Drama/ Romance/ Angst/ Humor

Summary: Acacia comes to live with her father at the end of Harry's fifth year. She, too was born at the end of July. So why didn't Dumbledore mention her? Did he even know that she existed? There will not be any major OoP spoilers until third chapter.

Ships: Acacia / Jacob ;; Ginny / Dean ;; Percy / Penelope

Main Charecters: Acacia-Blood Black-Snape, Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, Ginny(Ginnae) Anne Weasley, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva Mcgonagall, Val Thompson, James Potter, Lily Potter, Sirius Black, Maria Black, Marrissa Black, Percy Weasley, Jacob Shaklebolt, Henry Jalip, Telemain, Morwen, Kazul, and the ten talking cats.

Food for thought: 

* "And God said: 'Let there be Satan, so people don't blame everything on me. And let there be lawyers, so people don't blame everything on Satan.'" 

* And on the eighth day God said, "O.K. Murphy. You take over."

* Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

* When we talk to God it's called prayer. When God talks back it's called schizophrenia.

* If God is watching us, the least we can do is be entertaining.

* On the sixth day, God created the platypus. And God said: let's see the evolutionists try and figure this one out. 

* Professionals built the Titanic, amateurs built the Ark.

* If you freeze to death and end up in hell... wouldn't you be really comfortable some point along the way?

Author's note: this is a slight cross-over with the _Enchanted Forest Cronicles _and very very slightly with _Cardcaptors_. However, to understand this fic, you don't need to read either of them.

~!~

**__**

Thorn's Blood: Chapter One: Prologue

It was very quiet in the enchanted forest. Too quiet. The only sounds were that of an owl's hoot, and a man's heavy foot steps. The owl came out of his tree, spread his large, feathery wings, and swooped off into the falling darkness. Now only the man's trudging foot steps broke the suffucating scilence.

The man's name was John McKarthy, and by trade he was a tinker of sorts. He was also one of the best spies for the terrifying Dark Lord who called himself Voldemort.

John came to a small house with a bit of a clearing in front of it. To the right was a bit of a deer path, while on the left was the garden. John edged his way around until he came to the front of the house. He took from his pocket a small, silver key which he slipped in the doornob and turned. 

As he opened the door, a great intense heat enveloped John. He saw for a fleeting moment a great dome of flame close down on him, and John McKarthy was no more. 

Inside the house, its occupants slept on.

~!~

**__**

Thorn's Blood: Chapter Two: Screams, Caffine, and School.

A scream resounded throughout the Snape household, breaking the early morning calm that had sheltered it. Severus Snape jerked awake, and ran to see what had caused the comotion. In one of the four bed rooms, he found his daughter, Acacia-Blood, sitting up and looking around fearfully as if not quite sure where she was.

Acacia spotted him at the door and started to mutter apoligies. Severus came into the room and sat down at the foot of the bed. Acacia fell silent.

"Acacia what was it?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" he asked.

"Nothing," she replied firmly.

"So nothing is waking you up screaming every night? I highly doubt it."

"I don't want to talk about it. It's not important."

"Yes, it is. I need to know what happened to give you such dreams. Obviosly you don't think that they are from outside, since I do not see a bit of iron in the window."

"I said that I didn't want to talk about it!" Acacia screamed. Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes. "What part of that don't you understand?!"

Severus was silent for a moment and then asked, "pancakes or waffles?"

"What?!"

"Pancakes or waffles?"

"Just toast, thank you."

"Alright. Weat or rye?"

"Weat!"

"Do you want coffee or orange juice?"

"Caffine!!! Caffine!!! All hail caffine!!!"

Severus laughed and walked towards the kitchen, leaving Acacia alone. Acacia got out of bed and started to get dressed. She took her time to think about the dream. She remembered the book she read about dreams and getting rid of them. It said that hanging a bit of iron in the window would prevent outside dreams from entering the room. But these weren't outside dreams, they were buried very deep inside her. Getting up, she wondered whether it would still work.

Acacia crossed the room and looked into the large mirror that adorned part of the wall. A gaunt, almost skelatal face with high cheek bones and a scar on her right cheek looked back. Acacia had long black hair with silver-green streaks in it and black eyes that slowly changed to a blood red if she was mad. Her skin was an unhealthy shade of white that made everyone think of death. All in all, she looked like a vampire. And her room looked as if it should belong to one.

The room was large with a canopy bed, clothes chest, writing desk, and bookshelves all around the room. Under the mirror was a small pillow for her cat, Moonlight and a low perch for her raven, Jewel. Next to the bed was a rapier that was hanging on the wall. The hilt was silver and the crossbar and pomel were bedecked with emeralds. Down where the fuller would normally be located was the name Salazar Slytherin in a burning red script.

On the top shelves of all the bookshelves were displays. One held her wand, 13" dragon heart string, yew. Another had a set of large leather bound tomes. The titles were: _The Dark Arts: What Makes them Dark; The Dark Arts: A History of; The Dark Arts: Composition of and how to Counter them without the Law Intervening; The Dark Arts: Dark Spells against Dark Spells. _Others included a wooden wand with runes engraved upon it with three cores-dragon scale, pheonix flame, and unicorn horn, a large flat granite stone, a small collection of glass vials with odd colored liquids, two daggers, a blue pillow, and a large book entitled _The Clow_. Next to it was a leather box with a strap to attatch it to a belt. 

Acacia put on black jeans, a black tee-shirt with the writing, _You don't win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making the other son-of-a-bitch die for his_, black gloves, and a brown leather belt with a celtic design on it. She put her hair up with a black leather clip in a mary jane, laced up her combat boots, and walked out of the room.

Acacia found her dad in the kitchen making toast and deviled eggs. Coffee was already on the table along with a large stack of books. On top of the books was a sheet of parchment which had a long list of questions. "Your homework," Severus said as he buttered the toast, "Val said that you wanted to transfer to Hogwarts."

"She knew!?" Val was the princepal at Bremen. She was pretty nice, but very strict.

"Of course. Acacia, if there's one thing that you need to learn, it's how to fake sincerity. It was quite obvious to her, and the other teachers, that you were unhappy there."

"Oh. So I am really transferring?!"

"Yes, I just said that."

"Yay! Happy days!!! Lalalalalalala."

Severus just raised an eyebrow and put the toast down in front of her. Bouncing up and down she ate it quickly and gulped down her black coffee.

"I want to call a friend of mine." she said, and raced off into the room, slamming the door.

~!~

**__**

Thorn's Blood: Chapter Three: Telephone Conversations and Brooding.

Acacia dialed her best friend's number on her cellphone. After a few rings, she picked up. 

"Hello, Ginny Weasley speaking. Can I help you?"

"Hi, hi, hi!!! Guess what?!" Acacia said very excitedly.

"What?" came the timid reply.

"I'm transeferring to Hogwarts, I'm transeferring to Hogwarts, **I'M TRANSFERRING TO HOGWARTS!!!**" 

"Wow! I thought that you couldn't get your mom to send you there."

"I couldn't. Oh," Acacia sighed, "I haven't told you. They switched custody to dad. They found mom trying to kill me, and for some reason they thought that they had made a mistake about making me live with her." Her lighthearted tone changed to disgust, "if only they had figured that out six years ago."

There was complete silence after this statement. Ginny knew that Acacia's mother was cruel, but never thought that she would attempt to kill her own daughter. But then, she hadn't met Marrissa Black in over five years.

  
"Any way," Acacia continued, "Her trial is in about a week. At your ministry, actually. Think I can drop by your house and tell you how it went after? There aren't that many kids around here."

"Sure. Around where aren't there any kids?"

"The Enchanted Forest. It's where dad lives."

"Cool. Hey, can you come over on Friday? Mom's cooking meatballs."

"Uh, I think so, just a sec'. Dad!" Acacia opened the door into the hall, "I'm going over a friend's house on Friday, ok, thanks!" she yelled quickly, and shut the door. To Ginny, she said. "yeah, I can come."

"Great! Uh-oh mom's yelling for me to get down stairs. I'd better go. See you Friday!!!"

"Bye!"

Acacia turned off the phone with a sigh. Ginny, or Ginnae as she preffered to be called, was her only friend. All of the kids at Bremen thought her weird, at best. At worst, they thought of her as a total freak. It wasn't really suprising, since she had no friends to back her up, didn't mind muggles, and she had been moved up to the highest level potion class and care of magical creatures. Still, it was a bit depressing. After all, even though she was lucky that she had one friend, it would have been nice to have one on the same continent. Or at least have less ridicule from every one else there.

It wasn't that everyone hated Acacia, it was just that at least one of everybody's friends did. Or was terrified of her. It wasn't often that Acacia needed to scare someone, but when she did they nearly always stayed away from her for the rest of the year. Just like Kirk, Martin and Joel. Not that Kirk had a chance to get near her after what he did.

__

Acacia was sitting on a bench in the shade. A massive oak tree sheltered her from the sun on the right, and the school building on her left. She was about to get out her charms homework when she heard a familiar voice. And then a shriek of pain.

"Crucio!" came a soft, deadly voice from a corner in the court yard. Even though the yard was full of the chattering voices of students enjoying the sunshine, Acacia could recognize the singular voice with no effort at all. It was the one, after all, who had made her life in Bremen a living hell. 

No one else noticed what Kirk was doing. Or at least pretended not to. Early on, first years learned that Kirk Crathen was not one to annoy. If they didn't, they were, well, persuaded_. Acacia hadn't learned quickly. She had from Kirk herself that she was the most stubborn bitch he had come across. Getting to her feet, she shouldered her bag and marched over to where Kirk's newest victim writhed in pain. It was a first year boy, one that was fairly popular. _

"What, the hell do you think you are doing, Kirk?"

"Torturing a first year. What does it look like?"

"It looks like you are in major trouble. Stupefy!"

Kirk crumpled to the ground. Acacia looked around for someone to send to Val, and spotted the first year boy's best friend, who had been begging Kirk to stop.

"You," she said as she grabbed the front of the boy's robes, "Get Val. She should be in her office."

The boy wimpered and ran for it. A few minutes later Val came with him at her heals.

"Well, Acacia, what is it this time?" she snapped. "I sincerely hope that Martin and Joel don't get hysterics because of you."

"Hopefully not." She sneered, "Kirk put the cruciatus curse on Joel. Thought you ought to know."

"Which explains why you sent Marting to me. Not why Kirk is stunned on the ground"

"Thought you might want him to stop hurting kids just to fill his ego. Ever occur to you that he would notice if any one left looking like they were going to you for help."

"I will not be spoken to like that, young lady! Detention. Martin, dear, come with me."

Val had expelled Kirk. Not that it did much good. His friends were still there, tormenting those they thought beneath them. But never did they use the cruciatus curse again. Nor did they hurt anyone in front of Acacia.

But nothing mattered anymore. Acacia started to close herself in a hard shell, not allowing emotions to interfere with her classes. She started studying hard, excelling in all of her classes. It wasn't that she was any better than any of the other students, it was just that without friends or extra activities like quodpot to sidetrack her, Acacia could triple check all of her work. 

Her teachers noticed and started giving her more to do. Her classmates noticed and started giving her hell. It seemed that she could not go a week without someone trying to spill ink on her books, rip or burn one of her essays, push her over, or hurt her in other ways. And no one did anything to stop them.

Then the nightmares started. At first they came less than once a month. But then they increased till she couldn't go to sleep without having one. It was always the same dream. Always. And no matter how many times she dreamed of it, she couldn't stop from screaming when she woke up. 

At Bremen, Acacia had had to put a silencing charm around her bed so as not to wake the other girls. At her mother's house it didn't much matter, since she was in what used to be the celler, and her mother was on the top floor of their five story house. Not that she would have cared, had she heard her daughter screaming.

~!~

Author's Note: Bremen is in Maine, USA, but is not a primary point in this story. If she were transferring from the moon, it wouldn't make a difference. I just know that I can get all the culture stuff right if it's anywhere on the east coast of America.

Coming Up Next: The Censored Bloody Social workers and the toaster of **_DOOM._**
    
    Crystaline Snape, Creator of Chaos, Hyper Assassin, signing off.


End file.
